


Things Better Left Unsaid

by tinkertortillion



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Cheating, M/M, Oswald really fucked up, Things left unsaid, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 23:32:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11023887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkertortillion/pseuds/tinkertortillion
Summary: It’s funny, he thinks in a haze, how the mood of a moment can change so quickly, and how situations you never thought possible can come and change you.





	Things Better Left Unsaid

He won’t say it.

Jim Gordon looks down at the river, as if pleading for it to swallow him whole.

“Who was it then?,” he says.

“Jim,” Oswald whimpers, his voice a shaky whisper. He sounded like a wreck. “Jim, look at me.”

Gordon chuckles grimly. He has seen Oswald on all stages of pleading. He has seen him cry theatrically, has seen him flatter infamous criminals and men of law into doing his petty bidding, has seen him sweet-talk far too many people to number.

Never has he heard this, quiet and so unsuccessfully restrained.

“Jim. Please.”

Jim looks at him. He sees tears in his eyes. Those eyes that had always lighted up when Jim would show up. He remembered.

“Was he at least any good?” Jim says with a tight smile.

“It was a mistake, all right? It will never happen again,” Oswald says in a teary rush.

Jim looks down at the bay again. There are seals under there, he realizes to his mild surprise. He never noticed them, never thought of there being some in the docks of Gotham. Too much pollution. They should have suffocated from the fumes and waste of the boats a long time ago. A slow, agonizing death.

He feels his hand shaking, so he balls it up into a fist. Wonders why he ever thought Oswald would have done anything different.

“I have to go,” Jim says quietly, making a move away from the dock. Oswald desperately catches his wrist.

“I love you, not Nygm--!”

“It’s over, Penguin!” Jim snaps his hand away from the other man’s grasp. Oswald stills, breathing heavily, bloodshot eyes wide. Jim cools down, hiding his anger behind his passive façade. He clips, “There wasn’t anything to begin with anyways.”

Oswald says nothing, a shadow slowly passing around his face. Jim begins to stride away, feeling those black waves of feeling starting to well inside of him.

“Fine! Leave! That’s what you always do!”

Jim stops in his tracks, not facing Oswald.

The Penguin continues to yell his lungs out. “You only came to me when you needed favors! You knew I could not deny you. I was just a casualty in your adventures, a catalyst to your heroic plans. So don’t pretend that you are hurt! Don’t pretend that I was anything more than a quick distraction every week or so. You don’t get that privilege!”

A vein throbs on Jim’s neck. He can hear the prickling sound of the waves more acutely, feel the rush of the wind slapping his cheeks.

It’s funny, he thinks in a haze, how the mood of a moment can change so quickly, and how situations you never thought possible can come and change you.

He turns around and faces Penguin, who loses his anger and recoils immediately in horror at the sight of Jim’s face.

A small tear slipped down his cheek, betraying him.

Jim hated it. He took a deep breath through his nose to steady himself, and still his voice cracked a little as he told Penguin roughly, “You broke my heart.”

There, he said it. He continues his gait, already planning to find a way to forget all of this on the bottom of a whiskey bottle on his apartment, and pretend it never happened the next day.


End file.
